In one of the most dysfunctional schools in the country, the Grade 12 students had gathered in the hall for a ceremony. They were immaculately dressed in maroon uniforms, every one of them. Boys and girls wore ties, shoes brightly polished. Then, in came the procession of local pastors, school heads and the chairman of the governing body.The children were about to be prepared through familiar rituals for the final examinations of their school lives. A female pastor of charismatic persuasion prayed with sweat drops running down her forehead. A motivational speaker spoke about scaling high mountains and swimming deep oceans. A government official, ever the deflating bureaucrat, warned of the dangers of failing. Then a rousing rendition of the national anthem after which matriculants hugged as if they would never see each other again.What a waste of time.Throughout the year the pupils came to school late and left around lunchtime. Not their fault, though, for on any given day half of the teachers did not even bother to show up.On one of several visits to the school I just took over a class and started teaching the bored students in the absence of the educator. I found some of those teachers huddled in the classroom using their hands to eat large plates of food sandwiched between piles of unmarked student papers and torn textbooks; one of them asked me for a job but I restrained myself from sharing with her the definition of the Yiddish word chutzpah, which translates into Cape Flats English as "a bloody cheek!"I no longer accept invitations to do motivational talks at dysfunctional schools. Why? It's like telling a student who never spent a day in water to enter the national swimming competition.A motivational speech cannot do what stable schools, good leadership and faithful teaching did not do in the first place - inspire deep learning among children. My advice to the leaders (and I use the word loosely) of dysfunctional schools is do not use motivational speakers to inspire false hope.And tell the school's pastor that he has a better chance of raising the dead in the cemetery than causing a last-minute rush of knowledge into the heads of young people whose teachers collect (and complain about) their monthly cheques but fail to show up and teach in every class, every day. It is time to get real.I remember Ernie, my Standard 10 (as it was then) classmate who spent all his hours at the Pentecostal Church but not a minute in front of an open school book. On the day of the physical science final examination he showed up with a Moses-like determination on his holy face. He prayed earnestly and audibly, something about "speak Lord, your servant heareth". Before the minimum time expired for a candidate to leave the exam room, and despite the rule-conscious invigilators blocking the door, Ernie bolted, never to be seen again. Such principals, teachers and pupils give prayer a bad name.To the students reading this column, the take-home message is this: you have only weeks left before you are tested in the final examinations. Get off your knees, place your backside on a chair and study hard through the day and night.Do not blame the school or your teacher - it is your future that is at stake. If the school or teacher is hopeless, find someone who can teach you or the smart classmates from whom you can learn something.Locate one of those after-class organisations that can help you with your mathematics, or tune into some of those television programmes running revision classes. Most of all, avoid motivational speakers, especially those of the "only believe" variety.Even with reasonably good instruction, motivation means nothing without an "opportunity structure" visible to disadvantaged pupils.This means a poor student, motivated to do well in school examinations, must be able to see the next steps up the ladder; for example: "Will I get a bursary to continue to university and pursue further studies?"This is our role as university leaders: to get to poor schools and make hope real by offering scholarships to those children who played by the rules of the academic game. Companies, in turn, need to offer internships of various kinds to promising graduates so that they can envisage work with a degree.And so we all have a role to play but, for heaven's sake, let's put those motivational speakers out to graze...